Walking On Thin Ice
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: Set during season 3. Three days after the season's first snow, Rory convinces a reluctant Jess to go ice-skating with her. Things go wrong when Rory stumbles on the ice; waiting for her to recover, they discuss the town's feelings concerning them, and how in the end they shouldn't matter. R/J


**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Wal-Mart. Or AARP. :P**

 **You know, for all his faults, Jess had at least _one_ thing going for him: he did care about Rory, in the end.**

 **This is set during the time they were dating.**

There were plenty of things Jess didn't want Luke to know. He hid things so he wouldn't have to see disappointment on his face: his grades, his fights at school, his relationship with his teachers. He hid things that were just plain ol' embarrassing: imagine actually admitting to Luke's face that he worked at Wal-Mart, or that he once saved a cat from a tree because the little girl who owned him just looked so sad and pathetic.

Also listed on his ever-growing list of 'Luke Can't Find Out About This or I'll Never Hear the End of It' was putting on ice skates on the bridge of the lake along the edge of Stars Hollow.

Rory and he sat, sprawl-legged, across the bridge. The chilly air was full of silence and hollowness, wonder and whiteness. She'd almost slipped on the black ice, rushing over to meet him from the opposite end of the bridge. He'd warned her that she'd better sit down if she didn't want to get a concussion and die.

"You're in a good mood today," she'd said wittily, before kissing him.

Then, despite the delicate snowflakes flying through the air around him, he'd grown warm.

"Yeah, well, I like to keep you up-and-running," he'd mumbled. He didn't meet her eyes as they carefully got into their current sprawl-legged position and began to put on their ice skates.

Well, _Rory_ was putting on her ice skates. Jess was just reveling in the fact that he just got to _look_ at her. She wore a big blue waterproof jacket lined with faux-fur at the collar. Her dark pink gloves worked eagerly at her laces. She had blush on her pale cheeks. Her cool blue eyes were excited with all this snow around them. Her hair was pulled back practically; he liked the band in her hair. He exhaled a dragon's breath in a small sigh; she was _so_ pretty. She made his heart ache, and he didn't like that. Really, he felt like the stupid Grinch when he was around her: his heart grew two sizes in one day. It didn't help his 'heartless rebel' reputation.

"Okay. You know, for my first time ice-skating, I think it's going well so far. The skates fit, and from what I've heard, that's half the battle." Rory looked up and caught him staring at her like he was mesmerized. "What are you looking at?" she said dumbly.

"You," he said. He ducked his head and pretended to know how to put ice skates on his feet.

Rory gazed at the leafless wintry trees around the lake. She smiled, secretly pleased. She looked back at Jess struggling with the laces. "Did I get you the right size? Taylor said that these were size elevens—"

Jess jerked awake, like someone'd tasered him. "Wait, please tell me Taylor doesn't know about this."

"No, he doesn't." Rory looked away from his eyes and worked her fingers around his on his laces.

"Tell me: how did you manage to rent size eleven shoes from Taylor without raising suspicions?" Jess wanted to know.

"I may have told him that Mom has big feet," Rory said casually.

Jess couldn't help chuckling. "Oh, okay. So are these guy's shoes or girl's?" He leaned closer. "Rory, am I wearing women's skates?"

"No, of course not!" Rory looked up. "They didn't have elevens in women's."

"So Taylor thinks that Lorelai's wearing men's size elevens?" Jess said, amused.

"Yes, he does. Believe me, she's been accused of wearing less stylish things. I'm not losing any sleep over it. She can take a hit for the team."

"Really? I think if she knew, she wouldn't take a hit for _my_ team," Jess said, shaking his head.

Rory put a hand on his ankle; it was a seemingly calm gesture. "She'd take a hit for _mine_ , and I've recruited you."

"Look at you with all your sports analogies, and all the sports you know anything about is softball," Jess complimented.

Rory nodded knowingly. "I'm a regular spout of wisdom." She shrugged and between the two of them, they tied his bows on his skates. "There. Now these should be stuck to your feet for eternity."

"Really?" Jess said, amused.

"Yep. They'll never come off." Rory nodded authoritatively.

"Good. I was worried." He sighed and looked out over the lake. It'd been frozen over entirely; the local weather channel repeated that fact so many times that he felt like banging his head against the wall.

It was a cool Saturday; it's been snowing for the past four days. The streets were cleared but constantly getting snowed on again; the snowplow never got a break and Taylor found time in his busy schedule as town selectman to complain about it to everyone in town ("A little snow in a small town is _so_ charming, but four days of non-stop flurries in a danger to our town! The frozen pipes, the missed days of school, the black ice!" "Oh, the freaking horror, Taylor. Maybe we should all just stay home, cuddle in our blankets around our dying fires, and wait it out," Luke answered sarcastically).

Jess had worked all morning in the diner and gotten yelled at by a customer with some sensitive feelings because, apparently, he had an _attitude. That_ just got him into _another_ argument with Luke. It didn't help that when Jess had stormed out in his jacket and scarf he'd heard Miss Patty and Babette whispering about him at one of the diner's tables. Really, he couldn't do anything around here without hearing his name in the local gossip. He wouldn't be surprised if it made headlines in this boring, busybody town.

He'd work his sneakers thin, venturing out on the sidewalks _covered_ in black ice. when Rory's call to his cellphone caught his attention. He sure wasn't in the mood to do some ditzy thing like ice-skating, but she sounded so sweet, so eager, and so downright determined (seriously, she had the skates all in hand and talked while walking to the lake—there was no stopping her) that he'd said, "I'm entirely open to that suggestion," and ran (really risked his life, the streets of Stars Hollow were _so_ dangerous) to the lake to meet her.

He didn't like ice-skating. It was stupid. It was hard. He would suck at it. It was fun—he didn't just have _fun_. But Rory's insistence put a real damper on his resistance.

Rory looked around them with scrutinizing eyes. "I've found a real obstacle to our plan," she said.

"What?"

"How are we going to get up?"

Jess saw her point. The bridge they were on ran the length of the lake; the water level was a few inches shy of the bridge; the thick frozen sheet of ice ran under the bridge; the wind blowing through the small gap between the ice and the bridge made the wood cold, thereby making them cold as they absorbed it through the bridge. That bridge—that bridge was the problem. It was narrow, it was creaky, and apparently no one in Stars Hollow thought about safety too much, because its guard rails were non-existent. There were no railings to grab hold onto to stand up on thin blades on the icy-cold bridge.

"So, to summarize this situation: we're stuck on this bridge because we've fallen and can't get up," Jess said. He cocked his head. "How old are we again? I thought we had a few more years before we have to get stuck in the retiring home by our relatives who are tired of taking care of us."

Rory nodded. "True, I thought we had a few more years myself. Still, I'm sure Mom can rearrange her work schedule to come visit us during visiting hours."

"Let's hope so: we go to bed at five-thirty now, so supper's at four," Jess reminded her.

"Yes, my favorite: pureed veggies and a prescription drug cocktail," Rory said cheerfully.

"Oh, my favorite. Look at us, living it up."

They both looked around, and sighed. "We still have to find a way to get up," Jess said, like the obvious had to be mentioned.

"Really? Hadn't noticed." Rory groaned and hid her face behind her gloves. "Ugh! This was a bad idea. This was stupid. I've got homework, _you_ have homework. We both have stuff to do. I didn't think this through, I can't think! I can't do my homework, I can't think! I didn't think this through, and now we're stuck here in the middle of the bridge!"

Jess silently scooted over to her and laid his arm around her shoulder. "No, you didn't think this through."

Rory bristled and sighed, like she withholding a couple of tears of frustration. "Wow, aren't you a supportive boyfriend."

"But that doesn't mean you can't think of a solution," Jess prompted her.

Rory looked at him. Something in his eyes challenged her—not in a mean kind of a dare way, but in a 'You know what to do. Do it.'

"The answer isn't crawling over to the woods, grabbing a tree branch to draw us up, and then launching ourselves out onto the lake, is it?"

"It could be." Jess bobbled his head.

"That's the humiliating answer. Let's not do that one." Rory's eyes grew wide as she said, "Okay, I have a less stupid idea."

"I'm all ears."

"Ah, there's my supportive boyfriend. He was there all along," Rory joked.

Her solution was for them to get up using the other as a support, slowly rising and leaning on the other, back and forth, until they both stood up on the bridge. "Okay, we've gotten somewhere."

"That somewhere is 'up'," Jess pointed out.

Rory gave him a firm shove against his chest—not enough to knock him off his balance, but enough to make her point.

"Hey, hey, save the roughhousing for when we're not on a bridge about to fall to our deaths. Have some respect," Jess said.

"Fine." Rory met his eyes and her entire face grew serious. "You jump, I jump, Jack."

"Let's jump then."

They didn't _actually_ jump; they precariously stepped down onto the lower sheet of ice. The ice didn't crack under their combined weight, which was always a good sign. Holding hands, they inched their way forward. Rory looked up and said, "It's freaking cold, Jack."

"That isn't a direct quote," Jess said matter-of-factly.

"And he's smart, too," Rory laughed; she let go of his hands and held out her arms for balance. She ha-haed and said, "You're missing out, Mom!"

"What does that mean? Did you only invite me because your mom backed out of your plans? Was she really going to wear men's elevens?" Jess said. Despite balancing precariously on two blades, he stuck his hands in his pockets. His balance, weirdly, didn't suffer.

Rory's back was to him as she slowly ventured out on the ice, reminding him of a baby horse trying out their legs for the first time. "No! You were first-choice. I meant that Mom never took me ice-skating. We tried once, I mean, but her foot went through a patch of thin ice her first minute on the ice. She spent an entire week with her foot bandaged up on the couch."

"Sounds like a traumatizing experience," Jess said 'sympathetically'.

"Kinda. Walking on thin ice will do that to you."

"Walking on thin ice," Jess murmured. He knew why Lorelai had had such a terrible experience. Walking on thin ice was horrible—he knew from experience.

"We just stick with the fluffy parts of snow. Seriously—Mom _loves_ snow. When it snowed on Wednesday, we spent the entire day together. We skipped school and work—it was so great."

"Sounds nice." The ability to skip both school _and_ work was to be envied.

"We built a snowman, and a fort, and we had hot chocolate at Luke's—"

"I remember that."

"Yeah, it was pretty great. I'm sure if the right circumstances come about, Mom will try to skate again," Rory said. She gave a little twirl, dizzying herself in a circle, and she whooped. She saw Jess look at her with a conflicted look. Two sides of him warred—one that loved her, the way she was, the way she talked, walked, bantered, lived, loved—and one that envied her. Sometimes her life looked so easy. Look at her, with her cool school and hardworking mother, rich relatives who supported her in everything she did, full of motivation, determination, and obvious talent—her life seemed so easy sometimes, compared to his. He didn't want to be resentful of that. He _didn't_. But sometimes his jealousy and envy seeped through his eyes anyway, even for Rory.

"Are you okay, Jess?" Rory asked, concerned.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm in tip-top shape. Couldn't be better." He didn't feel like skating. Hell, he didn't even know _how_ to skate. Rory was at it like a bird flying on its first fall, and he just _knew_ he'd be the bird who fell to the ground the moment he tried to fly out of the nest.

"Jess, come here." Rory'd skated to the opposite bank of the lake. Now she retraced her sliding steps to the middle, to the bridge, whose edge Jess still clung to. Her legs wobbled still, but she kept her sense of gravity straight, kept her arms outstretched, and got herself a good distance forward without any kind of incident—until she reached the halfway mark. Her skate hid a ice-covered stick that jutted through the hard sheet of ice, and she stumbled, gasping under her breath as she hit the hard surface.

Jess flew to her without a single scared or resentful thought. Everything else cleared out of his mind, his sight was tunnel-visioned onto Rory. "Rory!" He knelt by her side, his hands outstretched but not daring to touch her lest he did further damage. "Are you okay? Are you all right? Are you injured? Where does it hurt?"

"I'm—I'm okay," Rory stammered. Most of the wind knocked out of her, she gathered breath while trying to focus on what had just happened in the span of less than six seconds. She inhaled and tried to get up, but she winced and fell back, pain flooding up her leg.

"Oh, you're hurt! Where, where's it?" Jess demanded to know. His voice was laced with panic and worry—it was a new sound for him.

"It's just my ankle. It's nothing. Just let me sit here for a minute."

Jess shook his head and danced his fingertips over the ankle she didn't favor. She winced and his touch grew gentler, lighter. He wouldn't hurt her. He'd read up a few medical accounts of leg injuries (hey, he read anything and everything) and knew symptoms. "It's not broken."

"Is it sprained?" Rory managed to say. Tears choked her eyes and throat—dang, it hurt. Wow, she hadn't planned that.

"No. It's just a slight twist. You should be able to get up in a few minutes, no crutches or hospital needed." Jess sat up again and sighed, running a hand through his hair. He looked at her and drew closer to her. He leaned her against his chest, and she breathed. She'd put all her body weight on her arms, and was glad to have a rest from it. He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, his leather jacket playing against her waterproof one. His main intent was to keep her warm while her foot grew easier to use. He sighed, trying to breathe; both of them had gotten the wind knocked out of them. "Just a slight twist. That's good. Ah, Rory. Ugh, I'm sorry."

"What for? You didn't do anything. It was all me," Rory said.

Jess didn't seem to hear her. "This could've been the car accident all over again —"

"Hey, no it's not! It was all me—I fell, it's all me, and I'll say that to anyone who says anything otherwise—" For having choked back tears a minute ago, Rory sounded impressively heated.

"Yeah, maybe, but _I_ should've come over. I shouldn't have made you skate over to me. This could've been like a million times worse, and be glad it isn't."

"Why are you trying to take the blame for something _I_ did?" Rory wanted to know.

"I'm not trying to, but that's what happens. Jess hurts Rory, and he never intended to, but the town doesn't care about that. They just know that he hurt Rory, and they'll crucify him for it no matter what." Jess's face was . . . _distressed_. "If you'd hurt your ankle any more, the truth wouldn't matter. It'd be all my fault. The town would hate me, like, more than usual, and your mom would hate me even more, and I wouldn't be able to walk down the street without people glaring at me like I killed a litter of puppies."

Rory didn't know what to say. She knew it all sounded ridiculous, but it also sounded _just_ like what the town would do. Oh, stupid, well-meaning, overbearing town sticking their noses and perspectives on the truth where they aren't needed.

Rory snuggled closer to him. "I'm sorry that everyone's so mean to you."

Jess scoffed. "It's not like I'm little Miss Perfect that everyone just decides to pick on. I'm not exactly friends with everyone around here."

"Yes, but that doesn't justify their behaviors toward _you_. You are you and they are them and they control their behavior just like you control yours and they—they don't have to be such jerks!" Rory said passionately.

"Yeah, I know." Jess smiled and kissed her hair.

"Hey, I'm annoyed! Don't make me not annoyed! I'm mad at them for not letting you have any breathing room!" Rory said indignantly.

"You're adorable when you're mad."

"Then I'm about to make you die from the adorableness," Rory said angrily, with just a little bit of a pout.

Jess's eyes were amused. He'd been pulled from the other side of his emotions. He felt better. "How's your ankle, Rory? Feel better?"

Rory realized that the pain had faded in the time it took her to rant. "Yeah, I do."

"All right. You're good, then."

"My mom _doesn't_ hate you."

"Sure. Keep believing that."

"You'd do well to do the same."

"Sure, Rory." He kissed her again.

She gave in to not being angry with him, and allowed him to help her to her feet much like as they'd done before on the bridge. He held both her hands as he stood across from her. He bent his neck so his mouth was close to hers. "Let's take this slowly, and _not_ have a traumatizing first-time skating experience, okay, Rory?"

"I'm entirely open to that suggestion," she said.

"Using my words against me, Rory? You _are_ quick-witted." He drew her close.

"Yes, the rumors about me are true, thanks for noticing." She smirked with a glimmer in her eyes.

He smiled and felt like that stupid Grinch with his heart growing again. But, somehow, looking into her eyes, he didn't hate that feeling anymore.

"Let's go. You jump, I jump, Rory."

Her eyes were like stars. "Then let's jump."

 **(*I'm slightly Team Jess—oops.)**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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